"Worcester man helps take panhandling law to high court" by Jessica Meyers, Globe Staff January 02, 2015
WASHINGTON — A small-town battle over free speech and public safety has stretched to the Supreme Court, thanks to a man who sometimes lives under a bridge in Worcester.
He's a troll.
Robert Thayer walked into a Worcester City Council meeting in 2013 and implored officials not to pass two ordinances that clamped down on “aggressive begging,” with buffer zones outside locations such as banks and theaters and a ban on standing in traffic islands.
He failed. But those unsuccessful pleas helped launch a legal fight with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union, a homeless advocacy group in Cambridge, and an impassioned School Committee member.
The case centers on whether the ordinances are so broad they threaten free speech for some of the country’s most voiceless residents. The Supreme Court will determine Jan. 9 whether to hear Thayer’s appeal.
I thought it was the altrui$tic ba$tion of corporate liberali$m doing that.
“There are some people being rambunctious out there,” Thayer said at the meeting. “But there are some of us out there who really need it.”
What attitude!!
Thayer has become the unusual face of a debate over how to meet the needs of a rising homeless population and keep communities secure.
Cities nationwide are taking firmer stances on pushy panhandling, from Lowell to Santa Barbara, Calif. The Boston City Council in 2013 strengthened its solicitation ordinance, which places greater limits on locations people can panhandle.
What did the king say?
But critics contend Worcester’s rules go too far.
The city’s definition of aggressive begging includes not only physical threats, but also holding a cup or flashing a sign at anyone waiting in line, or panhandling within 20 feet of a bus stop, theater, pay phone, sidewalk cafe, or ATM. Soliciting also is banned after dark.
What a pathetic statement this is regarding the entire $y$tem.
“This goes against the right of people who have to ask for things to survive,” said Tracy Novick, the Worcester School Committee member involved in the suit. Novick noted even though the move limits politicians from campaigning in popular traffic locations, officers haven’t cracked down in the same way.
Thayer’s girlfriend, Sharon Brownson, also is a plaintiff.
City officials, who have struggled for years to assist the region’s homeless population, dispute notions they are trying to wipe out the poor.
Not wipe out, wipe out, like if you said it about Israel and what they do to poor Palestinian, but wipe out as in remove from view so the image and illusion if the $hiny city is maintained.
“This is fundamentally about regulating coercive and intimidating behavior and not regulating speech,” said David Moore, the city solicitor.
Just wondering who will stop the U.S. war machine.
“It doesn’t matter whether you are panhandling, a Girl Scout, or a little league football player.”
Throwing those other two in with the stinky rabble?
But advocates see this as a clear First Amendment violation. And they’re using a recent Supreme Court decision as ammunition.
I thought it was a First Amendment issue.
Justices, citing free speech grounds, struck down a Massachusetts law last year that allowed 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics.
“An individual confronted with an uncomfortable message can always turn the page, change the channel, or leave the website,” Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “Not so on public streets and sidewalks. There, a listener often encounters speech he might otherwise tune out.”
Time for me to tune out because “this whole thing is a thinly veiled way of taking away panhandling and moving the homeless problem out of plain view so people don’t have to see it.”
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Also see: Maybe the Supreme Court Will Shut Me Up
Could make me homeless when you think about it.
Of course, like most homeless, I would choose to be.... right?
Could make me homeless when you think about it.
Of course, like most homeless, I would choose to be.... right?
